Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional massage apparatus 8, such as that disclosed in Taiwan Utility Model Patent No. M450373, includes a support frame 81, a moving unit 82, and a massage unit 83.
The support frame 81 has an upright base wall 811, two side walls 812 that, are connected perpendicularly to the upright base wall 811, and an elongated groove 813 that extends through the upright base wall 81.
The moving unit 82 has two upright guide rails 821 that are mounted respectively on the side walls 812, a support seat 822 that is disposed on the upright guide rails 821, and a driving member (not shown). The support seat 822 has an abutting wall 823 that is parallel to the upright base wall 811, two support walls 824 that are connected perpendicularly to the abutting wall 823, and two slide seats 825 that are disposed respectively on the support walls 824 and that engage slidably with the upright guide rails 821.
The massage unit 83 has a motor 831 that is disposed on the abutting wall 823 of the support seat 822, a driving shaft 832 that is connected to the motor 831 and that extends from the motor 831 through the elongated groove 813, and a massage head 833 that is disposed on the driving shaft 832.
In the conventional massage apparatus 8, however, since the motor 831 of the massage unit 83 is connected to the abutting wall 823 of the support seat 822, and since the driving shaft 832 extends through the elongated groove 813 so that a distance of the driving shaft 832 between the massage head 833 and the motor 831 is relatively long, the massage apparatus 8 tends to consume more power and rock too violently for comfort
Another disadvantage of the conventional massage apparatus 8 is that the support seat 822 of the same is bended from a metal plate into the shape as shown in FIG. 1. Therefore, due to the resiliency of the metal material, it is likely that the support walls 824 of the support seat 822 will recover in shape to be coplanar with the abutting wall 823, thereby causing the slide seats 825 to deviate from their original positions and compromising the sliding precision or the slide seats 825 on the upright guide rails 821, and in turn, result in wearing between the slide seats 825 and the upright guide rails 821 due to such displacement.